


things that go bump in the night

by ace_corvid



Series: Halloween Countdown Ficfest 2020 [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: AU where Bruce never made his return public bc he didn't want to deal with high society, Alfred Pennyworth Deserves a Break, Gen, Good Parent Alfred Pennyworth, Light Angst, Minor Serious Injuries, POV Outsider, Prompt Fic, TDC Unlucky Thirteen 2020, Urban Legends, batman is a cryptid, no beta we die like robins, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_corvid/pseuds/ace_corvid
Summary: Here's the thing about stories: they have to come from somewhere. Stories had to be built from reality, and as such, all of them on some level, had a grain of truth to them. Even tall tales of a Boogeyman- a Batman.It just so happened that, however, the 'myth of Batman' had a substantial bit more truth to it than the child populace of Gotham would like to believe.It just wasn'tthemhe was out to get.(Well. Unless they needed a home.)
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth
Series: Halloween Countdown Ficfest 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978783
Comments: 23
Kudos: 183
Collections: TDC's Unlucky Thirteen





	things that go bump in the night

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Haunted House / **Urban Legend**
> 
> hey welcome to day 5 of our TDC Halloween countdown, courtesy of the trans DC discord server! this ones actually quite spooky, but its definitely not my favourite i've done so far! nevertheless, enjoy! this is quite a nifty little au I think i'd want to explore more if I ever had time!  
> once again, if you're trans and you like DC, and would like to join the server and perhaps the fun, just shoot me a message!

Gotham was stranger, and it was filled with stranger bedfellows.

It was not a place for fairy tales. But stories? Oh it had them in abundance.

Myth. Legend. Bedtime stories for your children, tales to scare them into eating their vegetables.

_Have your Broccoli before the Court of Owls gets you._

_Of course you don't want to go to the circus, don't you remember-_

_Go to bed, or the_ Batman _will get you._

Here's the thing about stories: they have to come from somewhere. Stories had to be built from reality, and as such, all of them on some level, had a grain of truth to them. Even tall tales of a Boogeyman- a Batman.

It just so happened that, however, the 'myth of Batman' had a substantial bit more truth to it than the child populace of Gotham would like to believe.

It just wasn't  _them_ he was out to get.

(Well. Unless they needed a home.)

Bruce Wayne disappeared without a trace in the middle of the night, after the death of his parents merely weeks prior. It was such a mystery, it enraptured Gotham for weeks. To simply be gone, with no evidence, and no leads, no indication he'd be found? His butler led the search efforts valiantly, working with Jim Gordon, incited a no holds barred search trying to find him, but it was of no use. He was simply nowhere to be found, and it would go unsolved for years, until the case was closed. Bruce Wayne was declared dead.

No one blamed the Batman, because he'd been just a child's tale then. He hadn't really existed. But he would. And he was so much more connected to Bruce Wayne than any of them realised.

(Bruce Wayne had been terrified of the Batman growing up. It seemed prudent to become something more than fear.)

People began spotting the Batman on the streets of Gotham. Criminals mostly.

Everyone scoffed, at first, and treated it like any old cryptid sighting. Plenty of people had claimed to see the bat over the years, after all. They all stared in shock at the papers as they cried wolf of the child's tale no one  _really_ believed in, as if they were taking this seriously.

He was a horrible sight, they said. Gnarled teeth, twisted ears, glowing white eyes that pierced your very soul. Wings like no man could ever have,  _should_ ever have. A bat, painted across his grey chest. Claws poised to rip out a throat. Really, who would believe that if they heard it?

But then he was caught on camera. And slowly, but surely, an urban legend came to life. And people started to believe.

_He's angry,_ the people of Gotham whispered.  _We're in trouble. Why else would he have come for us, if we hadn't been bad?_

A child's horror, back to haunt them, as if Gotham hadn't gone bad enough without the Wayne's.

Then, one by one, corrupt officials began bowing out of their positions, going missing, some leaving Gotham all together. Crime rates lowered significantly, and then people wondered;

_Maybe we're not the ones who've been bad._

_He's not here for us. He's here to_ save _us._

Another bedtime story made to give nightmares was the Joker. When _he_ became more than fiction, in tandem with the Bat, people wondered if he'd try and save them too.

They didn't wonder for long.

The first child to go missing was Dick Grayson. He was 8. His parent's had just died. They put him in a Juvenile Detention Centre, because there was nowhere else for him. He'd just wanted to go back to the circus, back to the only family he'd ever know. But Gotham ate innocent children alive for Breakfast, and the Court of Owl's too, was more real than anyone could imagine, and they'd had their filthy claws all over this.

He'd been a tempered little thing, a right spitfire, always starting fights and _always_ finishing them. Embroiled in grief as if punching would ever do anything for his pain. He'd been such a happy little boy before, and he was so... sad, now. 

The Batman got him in his sights. 

He disappeared. 

Legend had it he was the first Robin, but there were many more after him. People had always known the tale of the Bat, of the Joker, of the Court of Owls. But they'd never known the tale of Robin, until now.

There were others who most agreed had became Robin's when they were gone with no evidence, no body.

Jason Todd, a street rat who, anyone who knew him. swore up and down that he wouldn't have run away, that he was a good boy. Tim Drake, a rich little boy who's parent's took months to notice he was even gone. Stephanie Brown, daughter of a criminal and an addict- by the time they missed her, it was too late. Harper and Cullen Row, runaways living together until Cullen went missing, and Harper went missing trying to find him. Duke Thomas, parents warped by the Joker, left with a strict military cousin and no one to see him go.

There was one Robin unaccounted for. He could have been any number of missing kids, realistically, but the most popular theory dictated that he was the son of the Bat himself. Who would sleep with such a monster was the question. And why did he choose to  _spawn_ ?

Robins still looked human, for the most part, when they first started out. But slowly, they become more and more monstrous, as they're distorted into myth and out of memory. Their grins become sharper, they grow out of their smiles, and suddenly the brightness is more blinding than a comfort.

The Robins looked human. Nightwing, the Red Hood, the Red Robin, all of the grown ones- them? They did  _not._

The sweethearts of Gotham: Robins- Batman's little helpers and favoured terrors of the night.

Jim knew Barbara knew a little more than she let on.

She wasn't afraid of the night in the same way she was when she was small. His little girl wasn't so little to more, it was to be expected. Initially, he just puts it down to that, but;-

There's a glint in her eye when they talk about the local cryptid that he doesn't recognise, and he doesn't trust. She's less trusting in turn, in him and in the city. She doesn't go anywhere without her laptop and a pen knife any more. She stands up taller, she doesn't back down from arguments, she's different, stronger, and she's packing muscle tone.

The boy who he sees her with sometimes, the one she won't talk to him about. He looks a little too much like Dick Grayson to be comfortable.

Then she gets shot, and the Batman isn't the cryptid he should've been worrying about, apparently. But his little girl is alive, and brilliant, and nothing ever stops her, least of all a wheelchair. If this secret is one she wants to keep, then he won't push, simple as.

Besides, it's not like he doesn't see the figure in the trees when he goes to sit at Bruce Wayne's grave anyway. He  _is_ a detective.

Alfred Pennyworth mourned. 

When it first came out that Bruce had gone missing, he had tried to deny his death as even a possibility. Even that he'd been taken... but Alfred knew, really, what had happened.

Bruce had never been taken. He'd chosen to leave.

The police suspected him at first, but there's a kind of grief and heartbreak that you just can't fake, and they had no evidence that wasn't circumstantial. It was quickly dropped. But no suspect rose to take his place, either; it wasn't anything Alfred didn't expect.

He'd still tried his hardest to find him, but Alfred knew on some level that Bruce would not be found if he didn't want to.

Alfred ended up with the Wayne's fortune. He'd been listed in the will, in the event that Bruce was dead. Most of their assets were liquidated, the funds from them going to society. But Alfred didn't want it. He hadn't wanted any of it. He'd wanted that boy to grow up safe, and happy, and loved, here in these halls.

He could never bring himself to leave Wayne Manor. He had to be here in case Bruce came back, in case he tried to find him, but that day hadn't came yet, and he was starting to doubt it would.

Until.

It's a typical night in Gotham: Dark, Stormy, etcetera etcetera. Alfred is in the kitchen, making tea. One cup, just for him.

There was a knock at the door.

Alfred blinked, placing down the tea in a slightly jilted manner. At this time of night? At Wayne Manor? Barely anyone came up here any more. He mercilessly strangles the hopeful thought that this is Bruce, finally coming back, because hope is for people who children haven't been presumed dead for over 30 years, and Alfred doesn't allow himself to have any.

He's right. It's not Bruce.

It's Nightwing.

No one has ever seen one of the Bats this close up before that wasn't being beaten for their crimes. But Nightwing looks in no shape to attack him. Blood poured from a wound on his side his hand was barely stemming, his other hand the only thing holding him up on the door frame.

At a second look, the second cryptid of Gotham doesn't seem a terrible, horrible, inhuman thing. The claws look cybernetic, the teeth look fake, and his eyes are flickering, artificial light. The  _man_ before him smiles, his 'fangs' lined with blood at the edges. His face is covered with bruises, his hair is a mess.

“Hey Alfie.” He says, like he knows him, like he's met. But Alfred never met Dick Grayson, before he disappeared or after, and he's certainly never met Nightwing. Still he draws himself up, getting a better gauge on the wound and how much help he needs. He beckons him in.

“Hello, Richard.” Alfred replies, because he's never stuck to nicknames before and he's not starting now, even when Master Bruce begged to be called 'Bru' for a week when he was 7. “May I inquire as to what you're doing here?”

“He always told us to go to you if we needed help and had no other options.” He replied, not bothering to explain who he was. Alfred felt his heart clench- of course. He should have guessed.

Bruce Wayne, the Batman. Only human, but ready to become a legend.

“I didn't think he cared.” Alfred helped the boy to the couch, not caring about blood stains. “After all this time.”

“You still cared, didn't you? You stayed. He always felt bad about that.”

“Not bad enough to call, clearly.”

“I'll take you to him.” Dick othered, his eyes going hazy through the pain. The wound wasn't lethal, but it must have hurt greatly. “I'm done letting him hide. When I'm better, you'll see him again.”

Alfred could have cried. “He'll get a stern talking to.”   


“I cannot express to you how much I'm genuinely looking forward to that.”

“But I suppose I'll forgive him.” Alfred tutted. “We're all only human, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> bruce is mothman for gotham send tweet
> 
> you can find me at:  
> Tumblr: ace-corvid.tumblr.com  
> Twitter: twitter.com/ace_corvid  
> come yell at me!
> 
> thank you so much for reading, see you next time! And if you enjoyed this, a comment would really make my day!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] things that go bump in the night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514133) by [arkadyevna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkadyevna/pseuds/arkadyevna)




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